| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. There's a bit of a mini-scandal underway about whether President Donald Trump deliberately slowed down coronavirus testing. Trump said he did so during a rally in Tulsa on Saturday, and has frequently said that he opposes added testing because it produces worse statistics. Then the White House said that he was kidding. Then Trump said on Tuesday that he doesn't kid. On one hand, only someone myopically focused on the short-term would fail to realize that testing is critical for fighting the pandemic and that deliberately holding it back would lead to more people getting sick and dying while also severely damaging his presidency and his prospects of re-election. On the other hand … well, we've been watching Trump for a while. Do you think it seems out of character? The real answer here is that it almost certainly doesn't matter whether the president actually gave a formal order to slow down testing. That's because we know that Trump just doesn't have very much clout in the Trump administration. His orders are often ignored. To be fair: Many presidents have great difficult controlling executive-branch departments and agencies. But Trump seems to have an unusual amount of trouble within his own White House. That's clear in the Washington Post's recent reporting about the administration's infighting over the next round of economic relief, in which Trump is presented as at best one minor voice among many in the discussion. Trump, we're told, has decided to support another round of direct payments, but no one in the White House seems to care — not even enough to keep their lack of respect for his decision quiet. So my best guess is that if Trump ordered people to slow down testing they would've ignored him. That said, Trump's overall coolness on the subject probably did have some effect. Bureaucracies tend toward the status quo. Presidential leadership matters in encouraging action, especially quick action. That kind of leadership certainly hasn't been apparent during the pandemic. Trump's public statements have waffled between outright hostility to testing and a kind of "Mission Accomplished" swagger about having ramped it up. In reality, rates of coronavirus testing have continued to improve. But it took a long time, and Trump was claiming success when daily levels were half of what they are now. So whether Trump ever deliberately tried to slow down testing probably hasn't mattered that much. But his lack of leadership certainly has. 1. Kelly Dittmar on how Republican women running for the House are campaigning this cycle. 2. Alexander Agadjanian and Brian Schaffner at Mischiefs of Faction on what to expect from former Vice President Joe Biden's running mate. 3. Kiela Crabtree and Corina Simonelli on labeling violence and why it matters. 4. Yanzhong Huang at the Monkey Cage on China, the U.S. and the World Health Organization. 5. Jamelle Bouie on Trump in a bubble. 6. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Sarah Green Carmichael on coronavirus and assessing risk. 7. Perry Bacon Jr. on the veepstakes. 8. And Joshua Sabatini on a second attempt to reduce the voting age in San Francisco to 16. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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